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‘If you come across any AAP leader…’: Smriti Irani's request to Gujarat women
Videos that purportedly showed Satyendar Jain taking a massage also showed a TV inside his Tihar prison cell, and showed the minister taking visitors in his cell.
Union minister Smriti Irani on Friday requested the women of poll-bound Gujarat to corner Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders and workers over “services” being provided to jailed Delhi minister Satyendar Jain inside his Tihar cell from a rape accused.
“I request women that if they come across any leader or worker of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), ask them what kind of culture they have that their minister who's lodged in Tihar jail is availing services from the rapist of a minor girl,” news agency ANI quoted Irani as saying at a rally in Surat.
On Wednesday, campaigning for the BJP's MCD poll candidate in Rajendra Nagar, Irani alleged “although Kejriwal has not completely realised the dream of poor people for electricity supply, his corrupt minister in jail is comfortably watches TV in jail”.
People of Delhi are awaiting with hope strengthening of facilities for women and improvement in their lives, she said, and added "but the leaders and ministers of Kejriwal are committing the biggest sin in view of women upliftment by taking services of a rapist in jail."
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been targeting Delhi’s ruling AAP and chief minister Arvind Kejriwal after video clips of a man giving a massage to Jain inside the Tihar jail had gone viral.
It was found that the man is a rape accused facing charges under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
Jail officials identified the man as Rinku and said he was arrested last year and was lodged in a ward near Jain’s prison cell. “...[Rinku] been transferred [to another ward] so that he is not forced to do anything for any inmate. He is not a physiotherapist as some reports said on social media,” a prison official, requesting anonymity, told HT.
The videos surfaced last week and sparked a fresh war of words between the AAP and the BJP.
